Category: Featured Post

ICSOs and intergenerational fairness: Why long term thinking is important and empowering in today’s whirly world

28th July 2021 by Vicky Tongue and Julie Jenson Bennett

The Centre’s new Scanning the Horizon Sector Guide on ‘Strategic Decision-Making in a Whirly World’, explores five main strategic pointers for civil society decision-making and adaptation in complex, uncertain ‘never normal’ futures. To further explore the fifth strategic pointer, ‘Rethink adaptable strategies to embrace emergent change with-in a long-term view’, we recently ran leadership and strategy events with two of our strongly recommended resources, including the School of International Futures (SOIF)’s exciting work on intergenerational fairness.

In this blog, Vicky Tongue, the Centre’s Head of Futures and Innovation, and Julie Jenson Bennett, Practice Lead, Intergenerational Fairness, School of International Futures, reflect on how ICSOs can contribute to and benefit from long-term intergenerational thinking and practice.

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Intergenerational fairness as an important skillset for a whirly world

Embracing the ‘Long Now’ is one strategy to help navigate a ‘whirly’, uncertain world, stretching responsibility over longer timescales – beyond a human lifetime – and giving a bigger picture to short-term turbulence. It helps crisis decision-making to elevate long-term equity and extends ‘legacy’ thinking to help identify what should be kept from the past, what should be unlearned in the present, and what is still needed to avoid future-loading major risks from important decisions made today.

All big current global issues have huge intergenerational fairness and equity dimensions, both between different generations alive today but also not yet born. Intergenerationally fair policies and strategic decisions allow people of all ages to meet their needs, and meet the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. ICSOs have an important role in ensuring that decision-makers take such considerations into account beyond current political cycles. But they also have a responsibility to ensure that their own organisational decisions are also fair for all generations.

The intergenerational fairness topic is particularly fascinating. As an organisation embarking on its strategy, this is particularly relevant in order to ‘disturb/disrupt’ current decision-making, to ensure long-term strategic choices for an alternate future.

Shahin Ashraf, MBE, Head of Global Advocacy, Islamic Relief Worldwide.

Interest in intergenerational fairness as a growing trend

Signals around equity between generations as a growing issue have been getting stronger since the 2008 financial crisis, further amplified by increasing mobilisation on climate change, and with the global pandemic. Younger generations have been getting more active in suing their governments to establish rights and duty of care towards the future. There is increasing interest from citizens, politicians and policy-makers around intergenerational cohesion and solidarity – rather than conflict – and different national ‘next or future generations’ initiatives are emerging. The OECD published a landmark report on intergenerational justice last year challenging the global policy community to be more systematic about this.

But this can come with major challenges which make it hard to accomplish. Future and younger generations have no vote, there isn’t much reliable information available to decision-makers about the long-term impact of most public policies, and the issue can quickly become polarised and make constructive discussions difficult. So how can we move from good intentions to true accountability, and ensure that (in Gaston Berger’s words) we’re looking at the future to disturb the present, and taking informed decisions today to design better, equitable policies and programmes?

A practical, flexible framework for assessing intergenerational fairness

The School of International Futures (SOIF) and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s ‘Framework for Intergenerational Fairness’ is a practical framework which any organisation – without prior futures or foresight experience – can use to assess whether any strategic, policy or investment decision proposed by others, or itself, will be equitable for people living today and tomorrow. This can be a very empowering process to support informed action-oriented conversations with what could otherwise remain an interesting, important but remote and hazy theoretical discussion.

The framework consists of three key, flexible elements:

  • A policy assessment tool to analyse whether decisions on what is fair and unfair for all generations, exposing specific dimensions of unfairness, identifying unintended consequences and making trade-offs more explicit.
  • A participatory national, or community, dialogue to define collective goals of what a fair and desirable future looks like – including conversations with future generations by proxy – for the policy to be assessed against,
  • Institutional ownership to determine how the methodology will be resourced, used and evaluated in government and society, so that it has independence, accountability, political legitimacy and administrative commitment.

Check out this introductory presentation from this year’s Global Foresight Summit for more.

Assessing decisions in as little as two hours

Any strategic, funding or policy decision can be assessed in five ways, to see if it:

  • Disadvantages people at any particular life stage
  • Disadvantages people at any period in time, present or future
  • Increases the chances of inequality being passed on through time
  • Restricts the choices, agency and freedom of people in future
  • Moves society further away from its vision of the future.

 

 

In a couple of hours, you can use the tool to make clear judgements and support risk analysis, contingency planning and policy design. Diagnostic prompts help you scan and assess policy impacts and trade-offs in detail, stress-test the decision against alternative future scenarios, and scrutinise the policy-making process itself for unfairness. You can adapt the lenses and depth and breadth of analysis for different issues and audiences.

Pilots over the last three years have successfully used the tool on a range of live policy issues and with diverse assessor audiences, including citizens. It enables nuanced understanding of the dynamics at play in complex policy areas, and can identify specific cohorts worse off under a policy scenario, and recommendations for additional policy areas and communications toaddress issues and perceptions of unfairness.

How ICSOs can use it and find out more?

There are two main angles for CSOs:

  • Holding governments to account for difficult issues of intergenerational fairness – ICSOs can use this framework in their advocacy work, or with concerned citizens and media actors, to scrutinise the work of governments e.g. during policy design, parliamentary scrutiny, spending reviews.
  • Shining a light internally – Organisations can use these principles to assess any of their own strategic policy or financial decisions – especially around spending and granting – to objectively establish whether they are fair for the long term, or just responding to short-term interests.

Our conversations also identified two exciting potential wider applications:

  • The domains and assessment criteria in the tool can help facilitate conversations ‘by stealth’ about entrenched power interests and inequality structures in the present. This can generate new kinds of conversations outside of traditional framings which come with political/polarised debates, divisions and rhetoric. So it could also be a useful model to support difficult ‘power shift’ conversations in our sector and agree the desirable fair, legacy outcomes we want to collectively achieve.
  • An interesting starting point for global conversations around the post-2030 SDG successor agenda, which runs out soon!

What’s next for the framework and how to stay involved?

SOIF is interested in expanding networks and coalitions to upskill and scale these processes, including ICSOs. They are open to providing support if you are interested in adapting it for your contexts or policy issues.

As a starter, they will be running more webinars from August to introduce new audiences to the framework, and also hands-on participatory sessions to use the policy assessment tool on live issues – in as little as two hours. For updates and opportunities, visit https://soif.org.uk/igf/.

Vicky Tongue

Vicky Tongue was the Centre’s Head of Futures and Innovation/Scanning the Horizon project manager from 2018-2022, leading the Centre’s futures strategy and collaborative trends scanning community. In this role, Vicky wrote and edited many of the Centre’s Scanning Sector Guides and Civil Society Innovation reports.

Julie Jenson Bennett

Practice Lead

School of International Futures

Julie Jenson Bennett leads the Intergenerational Fairness Observatory at the School of International Futures. Her futures practice developed over twenty-five years as a researcher and strategist in technology and product design. Alongside her work at SOIF, Julie co-directs The Generation Poetry Project, exploring new communication systems emerging amongst younger people, and is an Associate Lecturer at Central St. Martin's in the Product, Ceramics and Industrial Design programme.

Re-powering the system

22nd July 2021 by Wolfgang Jamann

Power Shift, Localisation and Decolonising Aid, have become strong trends, and also buzzwords in the current debate around a more legitimate and impactful aid system.

The push for more resources and decision-making power has most prominently launched at the World Humanitarian Forum in 2016, and was linked to pledges to increase the appalling low percentages of aid funding to local actors, both by donors and international civil societies organisations (ICSOs). Breakthroughs of this ‘Grand Bargain’ are yet to be seen, despite continued commitment to strengthening local Civil Society, recently confirmed by a strong OECD policy document.

Civil Society itself is struggling with implementation. The ambition has worked itself into a number of narratives on how the ‘system’ should change, how power needs to be shifted, how International ICSOs need to be re-imagined.

Not all of these narratives are positive. Nationalistic Governments in India or parts of Africa have hijacked the ‘localisation’ ambition to keep foreign CSOs at bay and discredit them as foreign agents. Even in the US and the UK localisation has become a different meaning – using foreign aid to help disaster victims at home. The recent drastic cuts by British FCDO show the trend.

Looking at the traditional ‘Power Holders’ in the aid system, donors, bilateral agencies and ICSOs, many, if not all, will agree that ‘localisation’ is a good thing, though. It strengthens the consideration of local contexts, vulnerabilities and capacities, true partnerships, inclusive decision-making etc. Many are talking about, and implementing, changing funding patterns, with promising developments linked to the increasingly localised COVID-19 responses.

International civil society organisations have, generally, a rather positive narrative on localisation that includes many past achievements they seem to have made over the last 30 years. Many have grown into confederations, with strong local chapters, and a huge armada of local staff, increasingly in leadership positions. Many will defend their business models as inclusive, decentralised, and addressing the local contexts.

The challenge comes with scrutinising whether these models are good enough. Are power imbalances being addressed, and radically changing? The Centre works with a number of ambitious ICSOs who have started putting local actors (people we work with, partners, primary actors) into the centre of decision-making processes. These are ‘Governance’ discussions in the wider sense, i.e. putting processes and structures to the test – are they designed, capable and fit for greater inclusion?

It’s an exciting journey which has no easy answers – different ways of inclusivity are being chased, and different power dimensions are being addressed – in Big ‘G’ Governance (structures, decision-making protocols, voting rights) and small ‘g’ governance issues, like relationship building, information flow, accountability and transparency, ‘expertise talks vs. money talks’, physical points of decision-making.

Who and what helps and blocks? Facilitators and blockers of power shifts are often not the same people / entities. You need almost tactical approaches (actors mapping, power analysis, finding sponsors etc.). A very good idea is to link the governance as much as possible to the intent and mandate of the organisation.

A quick insight from an initiative many have heard about, could be helpful with focus. The West Africa Civil Society Institute WACSI has just published a survey of about 500 local CSOs about their perception on how partnerships play out. The results were almost surprisingly positive, with lots of appreciation of LCSO / ICSO partnerships, many of which do consider local contexts. But a few critical issues arose: Decision-making is uneven and not mutually beneficial, ICSOs are expected to be facilitators not implementers, more consideration of local capacities, not necessarily funders.

A recent ‘Hard Talk’ event between ICSOs, partners, donors and critical friends touched upon those dimensions and showed the potential for change, but the need for more intense dialogue between groups that have different expectations of each other. One of the biggest challenges comes from inherent ‘colonial’ structures of the aid system, which can only be addressed in an intersectional way, not overlooking discriminatory practices, and engaging in an open exchange and the willingness to learn from each other. A window seems to have opened to turn an outdated aid system onto its feet, and let power go to the people and their institutions, which have been ‘recipients’ of philanthropy, goodwill but bad practices for too long.

Wolfgang Jamann

Executive Director

International Civil Society Centre

Dr. Wolfgang Jamann is Executive Director of the International Civil Society Centre. Until January 2018 he was Secretary General and CEO of CARE International (Geneva). Before that he led NGO Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and the Alliance 2015, a partnership of 7 European aid organisations. From 2004-2009 he was CEO & Board member of CARE Deutschland-Luxemburg and President of the CARE Foundation. Previously, he worked for World Vision International as a regional representative in East Africa (Kenya) & Head of Humanitarian Assistance at WV Germany. After his Ph.D. dissertation in 1990 he started his career in development work at the German Foundation for International Development, later for the UNDP in Zambia. As a researcher and academic, he has published books and articles on East & Southeast Asia contributing to international studies on complex humanitarian emergencies and conflict management.

An Unequal Pandemic: Collaborative report on marginalised groups amidst the pandemic

13th July 2021 by Peter Koblowsky

The COVID-19 pandemic has built upon structural inequalities of our societies and eroded hard-won progress against poverty.

Communities and civil society organisations (CSOs) have been at the heart of local COVID-19 responses, generating data which could help to address pervasive gaps and bias in official statistics and data.

“An Unequal Pandemic” brings together data and insights from communities and over twenty CSOs to uncover the unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and spotlight community responses and resilience.

The report is a joint effort of over 20 CSOs, representing a merger of the the Leave No One Behind Partnership and the Inclusive Data Charter networks. The CSOs in this collaborative effort represent and work with diverse groups, including ethnic minorities; Dalits; indigenous peoples; internally displaced people (IDPs); lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI); migrants; older people; persons with disabilities; refugees; religious minorities; street-connected children; undocumented people; women and girls; and young people.

The Collaborative authoring the report results from many communities’ and organisations’ time and effort during an incredibly challenging period. We extend thanks to individuals, groups and communities who have generously contributed their perspectives and experiences to research that contributed to this report.

An Unequal Pandemic – Full Report

To access the report as a virtual story map, including various other features as audio and video records and translations into other languages, please visit the following website:

Discover virtual story map 

Peter Koblowsky

Senior Partnership Manager - Leave No One Behind

International Civil Society Centre

Peter joined the Centre in January 2013, back then as a trainee. He completed the traineeship in the advocacy & campaigning office of World Vision Germany. Peter now coordinates the Leave No One Behind project and contributes to the development and implementation of various other strategic formats. Before joining the Centre, Peter worked for various organisations and think tanks in the development sector, being an expert in multi-stakeholder processes. He studied at the University of Bonn and graduated with an MA in Political Science with a focus on multi-actor advocacy for climate policy.

Joint learning report: “Inclusive SDG Data Partnerships”

13th July 2021 by Peter Koblowsky

Our new joint learning report gathers knowledge and recommendations from the Inclusive SDG Data Partnerships initiative, which is co-organised by Partners for Review (P4R/GIZ), the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), and the Centre in its role as the secretariat of the Leave No One Behind Partnership. The initiative aims to advance data partnerships for the SDGs and strengthen multi-actor data ecosystems at the national level.

Goal is to meet the SDG data challenge by improving the use of alternative data sources, particularly data produced by civil society and human rights institutions, and complementary to official statistics. This report aims to capture and share the key lessons learned from the first part of the initiative, which took place between October 2020 and March 2021.

Read our report “Inclusive SDG Data Partnerships”

 

Peter Koblowsky

Senior Partnership Manager - Leave No One Behind

International Civil Society Centre

Peter joined the Centre in January 2013, back then as a trainee. He completed the traineeship in the advocacy & campaigning office of World Vision Germany. Peter now coordinates the Leave No One Behind project and contributes to the development and implementation of various other strategic formats. Before joining the Centre, Peter worked for various organisations and think tanks in the development sector, being an expert in multi-stakeholder processes. He studied at the University of Bonn and graduated with an MA in Political Science with a focus on multi-actor advocacy for climate policy.

The Tale of two Lounges: International Mobility in post-Covid Times

30th April 2021 by Karl Steinacker

A few years back, arriving at Jomo-Kenyatta-International-Airport in Nairobi, my travel companion could not, when asked, produce proof of his yellow fever vaccination. While I could and was allowed to proceed and to pick up my baggage, my companion was whisked away towards men in white coats to get his shot on the spot. When I met him later and asked about the vaccination, he casually explained that he paid for it but didn’t get it. He preferred to have it done by a doctor he trusts.

Reflecting on the future of international mobility in the times of the Covid- 19 pandemic, it is hard to imagine my travel companion getting another chance to negotiate his way out of such a situation. The pandemic has severely impacted international mobility and there is no reason to believe that it will return to what it was before 2020. The best indicators for the changing times are the ever-increasing number of newspaper articles that announce the imminent arrival of smart vaccination certificates as a prerequisite for future travel. Sometimes also referred to as immunity passports, they are intended to provide credible proof that the carrier has been vaccinated, has had a recent negative test or recovered from the disease.

Expecting a bonanza, many technology firms develop digital certificates that can be accessed on smartphones by employers, airlines, restaurant owners and others. But more importantly, governments are reflecting on how to manage domestic and international travel in the future. Like 9-11, this pandemic is likely to bring about profound changes to international mobility.

The modern system of international mobility, developed after World War II, is based on passports and visas. For the countries of destination, the system’s main objective was to ensure that short-term visitors would not extend their stay and remain illegally. In addition, a valid passport ensured that there is a country to which the traveller could return to – voluntarily or involuntarily. Visa requirements added vetting procedures to minimise the risk of undesired entry and manage specific mobility types, such as work, study, immigration, or refugee resettlement.

Terrorist attacks up to 9-11 and after that added a strong security dimension to the management of cross-border mobility. Since then, electronic readable passports, biometrics, data collection and mining, the use of AI, were introduced to enhance control and security. Advanced electronic notification systems, such as ESTA, are being deployed to prevent persons from travelling considered to be security risks.

The Covid-19 pandemic adds a new dimension to the management of international travel: public health and the objective to protect the population in transit and at a destination from being infected by the Covid-19 virus or variants that have already or are likely to emerge in the future.

The above figure shows the complexity of what is to be certified: Is the carrier of the digital certificate identical with the person travelling? What kind of test or vaccine is used and is it valid at the destination and for how long? Is the issuer of the certificate accredited and can it be trusted?

Given the circumstances, in international travel, the clearance for travel has to be issued before take-off. Sending the person back on arrival for health reasons will not be effective since the journey might already have led to infections in the plane, in transit, or on arrival. This means that the country of destination must accept the certificate issued in the country of departure. While IATA, ICAO and others are working on worldwide solutions, it is unlikely that governments will subscribe to them quickly. Rather, we should expect bilateral or regional solutions between certain countries. The European Union, for example, is working on a Green Certificate, which will be valid for travel within the block.

The OECD countries are likely to work on solutions that privilege travel between them – similar to the visa waiver systems already in place. As in the case of passports and visas, airlines will be enlisted to enforce their rules. This revamped system will leave many countries and populations of the Global South out. It so happens that the Covid-19 vaccination campaign is, thus far, benefitting mainly the OECD countries. Hence, the question arises how global mobility will look like in a world divided into two travel lounges:

  1. The first-class lounge will assemble a few countries with the resources available to vaccinate and treat Covid-19 infections, as well as the digital infrastructure necessary for a certificate and an ESTA-type health notification system. 
  2. In the second-class lounge, we will find countries with low vaccination coverage and a high risk of new mutants of the virus emerging in the future, as well as a deficient digital infrastructure. Travellers in this lounge will face prolonged checks and procedures and, most likely, persisting quarantine obligations and travel restrictions. 

Those at the bottom of the mobility hierarchy, persons without means of identification, refugees and displaced persons, migrants and informal travellers, will find no lounge at all. Who thought that (legitimate) public health considerations have the potential to become bricks in the Fortress Europe and Trump-style wall projects?

And while standardised digital vaccination certificates will play a key role in future cross-border mobility, even though it is unlikely that all countries will attach the same rights and procedures to them, certificates are also being introduced for domestic use. Here significant challenges await civil society too: How to fight exclusion by design and default and, instead, maintain the rights of those with limited or no access to vaccination, health and digital resources to public life, education, livelihoods and other socio-economic opportunities?

Time travel is a known feature of many sci-fi stories. It is still fiction. However, limited global mobility, for some much more limited than for others, is becoming a reality.

Karl Steinacker

Digital Advisor

International Civil Society Centre

Karl Steinacker is currently the Digital Advisor of the International Civil Society Centre. He studied political science at the Free University of Berlin and international law at Cambridge University. He then spent three decades working for the United Nations (UNDP, UNRWA, DPKO, UNHCR) in the fields of development, peacekeeping and refugee protection. At the UN Refugee Agency, he held positions in Africa and at its Headquarters and was responsible for Registration, Statistics, and Data and Identity Management as well as for Camp Coordination/Camp Management.

New civil society collaborative launches to understand the true scale of COVID-19’s impact on marginalised people

14th April 2021 by Kate Richards and Peter Koblowsky

Announced today, the Civil Society Collaborative on Inclusive COVID-19 Data will work alongside marginalised communities and activists to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and collectively advocate for an inclusive recovery.

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With COVID-19 pushing up to 150 million people into extreme poverty by the end of 2021, the urgency to understand and meet the needs of the world’s most marginalised people has never been greater. However, pervasive gaps in official data and statistics are hindering efforts to protect and support those being left behind. To address this, over 15 civil society organisations (CSOs) are coming together and launching a collaborative that will combine their data-driven insights to create a more intersectional understanding of the pandemic’s effects.

From women to persons with disabilities to refugees, the pandemic has highlighted and deepened long-standing inequalities. But the true scale of the pandemic’s effects is obscured by data gaps. Many millions of people are invisible in official data and statistics, their lives and needs uncounted in policy decisions. An equitable recovery from COVID-19 requires better data on the lives of marginalised people, collected with their knowledge, consent, and participation.

Civil society is uniquely positioned to generate data and insights with marginalised people that can complement official statistics and fill data gaps. From citizen-generated data to rapid needs assessments to programmatic data, the collaborative is harnessing existing data collected by CSOs over the past year.  

The collaborative will work with communities and activists to develop a data-driven report and advocacy campaign, launching in July this year at the United Nations High Level Political Forum. 

Alongside new insights on the effects of COVID-19, the report will highlight CSOs and citizens’ learnings on inclusive and participatory data collection methods, and offer recommendations for improving collaboration and coordination between official data producers, civil society, and citizens.

The collaborative is led by a Steering Group, involving Action Aid (Denmark), Christian Aid, Development Initiatives, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, International Civil Society Centre, Plan International, Restless Development, and Sightsavers. 

A diverse and growing range of CSOs are engaged as partners, including Africa’s Voices Foundation, CBM, CIVICUS, Consortium for Street Children, HelpAge, Institute for Global Homelessness, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Save the Children, VSO, and World Vision.

The collaborative is an open platform for civil society, communities, and activists. If you would like to learn more about engaging, please contact Kate Richards, Inclusive Data Charter Outreach Manager.

The collaborative is made possible by the Steering Group’s contributions and convened by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and the International Civil Society Centre. 

Kate Richards

Inclusive Data Charter Outreach Manager

Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

Kate Richards is the Outreach Manager for the Inclusive Data Charter, an initiative of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. She leads on engaging new Inclusive Data Champions, as well as developing and implementing communications and advocacy strategies that catalyze action on disaggregated and inclusive data. She previously worked at Dalberg, advising leading foundations, multilaterals, and NGOs on strategic communications and advocacy, and at Oxford University. Kate has an MPA from the London School of Economics and is based in London.

Peter Koblowsky

Senior Partnership Manager - Leave No One Behind

International Civil Society Centre

Peter joined the Centre in January 2013, back then as a trainee. He completed the traineeship in the advocacy & campaigning office of World Vision Germany. Peter now coordinates the Leave No One Behind project and contributes to the development and implementation of various other strategic formats. Before joining the Centre, Peter worked for various organisations and think tanks in the development sector, being an expert in multi-stakeholder processes. He studied at the University of Bonn and graduated with an MA in Political Science with a focus on multi-actor advocacy for climate policy.

Tools for inclusive futures: Reflections on ‘Imagining Feminist Futures after COVID-19’

5th March 2021 by Vicky Tongue

In 2021, the Centre’s Scanning the Horizon futures community is working on ‘inclusive and equitable futures’, exploring and sharing models, analysis and collaborative opportunities for more diverse futures conversations and thinking. One key part is sharing practical and accessible tools, particularly open source methods which do not require significant specialist knowledge or skills to implement and, increasingly, virtual delivery options.

We want to explore new opportunities to either use these tools for our own community or group collaborations, or exchange experiences as we use shared techniques with our own audiences. These ‘meet the author’ tools workshops are a new kind of online community offering this year.

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Tools for inclusive futures: Bringing you the best of what is ‘out there’

Common barriers to introducing or strengthening futures thinking in organisations include time-consuming workshops, not being able to bring diverse groups together (especially in-person) or the need for consultants or specialists to lead this work. So in 2021, we want to find the best of what is ‘out there’ to address these challenges, and bring them back into our community to help democratise futures practice beyond a smaller group of organisational strategic thinkers.

So we were very excited to find the new ‘Imagining Feminist Futures after COVID-19’ workshop methodology developed by the Australian CSO International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) in 2020. This is a 3-hour online methodology which can bring new, diverse audiences together without expert external facilitation. And we partnered with IWDA to deliver a combined familiarisation and training of trainers session on 23-24 February for ten organisations from the Scanning the Horizon community.

A way to bring futures thinking to feminist thinkers, and feminist thinking to futures thinkers

Imagining Feminist Futures After COVID-19 is a project IWDA with support from a steering group of actors across the feminist movement. The project aims to enable feminist organisations and networks to think through the ways in which the COVID-19 crisis is changing the future trajectories – both positive and negative – for feminist social change towards the year 2030.

IWDA commissioned a consortium of feminist futurists, led by Changeist, to design this adaptable workshop methodology based on futures thinking approaches to support diverse feminist activists, organisations and networks to come together virtually (or in person where possible) and apply their own futures thinking and scenario building. For many participants, it may be their first experience of structured futures thinking, and as such, the tools have been designed for use by an audience which is totally new to the concepts.

A core objective of the project is to make the workshop methodology available for anyone to run with their own organisation, network or community. In return, they ask that participants share the findings from these different workshops. IWDA, along with project steering group members, plan to bring their own analysis and visioning to these outcomes and develop a range of creative outputs to add to the rich discussions happening across feminist movements.

IWDA has been holding feminist futures workshops with participants in Australia and across Asia and the Pacific. This workshop with our Scanning the Horizon community was IWDA’s first time with a group of more generalist futures thinkers, rather than strongly feminist-focused organisations and individuals.

The short summaries of (i) principles and frameworks that support and enable a feminist future and (ii) privileging forces/established power structures within society that hinder equal progress towards feminist futures help bring about different and deeper types of conversation. With more generalist audiences, we recommend including these as additional pre-reading, and to increase the amount of time in the agenda allocated to discussing the lens of privileging forces.

And actually, just a great entry point for different and dynamic conversations

Participants felt the workshop methodology can be used both to inform strategic thinking and also as a tool for personal formation and training minds to think in more inclusive and equitable ways about the future. Its full trends list includes STEEP + V – incorporating values into a standard social, technological, economic, environmental and political assessment – which makes this a more holistic and interesting process.

We wanted our particular group to work on a broad range of trends, so included 18 from the full list of 20 (three teams with six trends). For groups with a specific aim or audience, focusing down on a smaller set of more relevant or influential trends may work better for more focused futures conversations.

Interestingly, of the trends provided, our three breakout teams independently decided to focus on: (i) ‘new faces of change’, (ii) ‘refocus on community’ and (iii) ‘sharing and peer economies’. This may reflect interest in exploring some of the new decentralised and power and leadership models which have become more prominent since COVID-19.

You can see the outcomes of our conversations here. They show that the method is great at enabling dynamic and interesting exchanges which can shift thinking and explore new possibilities in the group you’re working with. It also documents a range of insights which can be compared and contrasted with other groups also using the tool.

You don’t need expert knowledge, but you do need well-prepared facilitation

Key factors for facilitation are who you have in the virtual ‘room’ (see below), how you capture different perspectives, and how you support participation and share the findings.

IWDA have really made the toolkit as ready to use as possible, with a clear, well-illustrated facilitation guide and pre-populated Miro board for your use. After our session, nearly all participants felt ready to run a workshop themselves, with proper preparation time. This included participants relatively new to futures thinking, feminist thinking or even both, which reiterates just how accessible it is and does not require significant pre-existing knowledge, experience or expertise.

It does, however, require careful thought on facilitation, and time to ensure in advance that participants have sufficient basic skills and familiarisation with Miro. This may be easier for digital natives and require more preparation time for others (note that participation does not require a paid account. You should offer advance familiarisation sessions to people who have not Miro before, and share a practice ‘play’ board. The workshop board layout is a very intuitive design, with arrows to guide people through the navigation. If you take this time and care, the technology should not be alienating or prevent people from taking part.

And you do need to stress fully with participants how important it is for them to take the time for the pre-reading so that they will get the most out of the group conversations.

You also need to think through how to organise the group documentation of dynamic conversations to fit the time available – as you will feel the pressure to get things down! The beauty of Miro allows everyone to write down and share their ideas individually, in an open way aligned to the aims of the method. But a designated scribe may also be needed to help summarise the collective sense-making conversations for report back in plenary, at the risk of simplifying or even silencing some of other strands, to report back to the others.

Ensuring diversity in the virtual room and breakout teams

When asked who they planned to run the workshop with, there was a real mix of audiences, both internally within our own organisations, externally with partners, networks and stakeholders, and in social circles with family and friends. And also with a range of people – activists and young changemakers, advocates, leadership/management teams, gender team/community of practice – but ideally with a broad mix of perspectives and roles to keep the explorations as diverse and dynamic as possible.

The workshop is designed for 5-20 participants. Breakout groups of around four people feels optimal to both generate ideas and keep documenting of conversations manageable. But ensuring diversity of groups is most critical – experience/knowledge/roles (futures/feminist/other), gender and geographic diversity, and a mix of optimists/pessimists (which could be identified by icebreakers).

Building a base of practice and knowledge

Half the organisations who took part are already planning to run workshops with their networks. The Centre itself will run another session in May at an Americas/Europe/Africa-friendly time for organisations. We want to contribute to a community of worldwide practitioners using this method, and share both content findings and facilitation experiences or tips with IWDA. This blog is our first contribution, so watch this space for more updates from us and the other participants-turned-practitioners, over the coming months!

Let us know if you are interested in joining or running an upcoming workshop on ‘Imagining Feminist Futures after COVID-19’.

Our next community methods/tools workshop will be with ParEvo on 29 April 2021 – see more here.

Vicky Tongue

Vicky Tongue was the Centre’s Head of Futures and Innovation/Scanning the Horizon project manager from 2018-2022, leading the Centre’s futures strategy and collaborative trends scanning community. In this role, Vicky wrote and edited many of the Centre’s Scanning Sector Guides and Civil Society Innovation reports.

New – 2021 events and programme flyer, find out what’s on and what we are doing

15th January 2021 by Adriana Sahagún Martínez

Welcome to our 2021 flyer. You can download the flyer below to find out about what we plan to do this year and how you can get involved.

Download 2021 Flyer

 

Communications Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Call for Solidarity Playbook Case Studies

18th June 2020 by Eva Gondor

The Solidarity Action Network (SANE) is looking for case studies to include in its Solidarity Playbook, to be published later this year. We are looking for examples of strategies and resilience mechanisms of international civil society organisations (ICSOs) and coalition responses to civic space restrictions that demonstrate how solidarity can work in practice. These strategies and responses may have come as a result of an undue threat or attack, equally they relate to the operating environment, for example a new law making it harder for CSOs to operate.

Continue reading if you are interested to learn more or have an example to share.

Solidarity Action Network and Solidarity Playbook

The Solidarity Action Network (SANE) brings together international civil society organisations (ICSOs) and their local partners to support each other when faced with undue threats and challenges to their operations or civic space restrictions more broadly. The network collects and shares knowledge and best practices, inspires collaborative actions and explores new solidarity mechanisms beyond public statements of solidarity.   

The Solidarity Playbook is an integral part of the Solidarity Action Network. It collects case studies and best practices to help other civil society organisations respond to undue scrutiny and challenges, and to enable learning on how to act in solidarity with civil society actors, particularly local partners. A set of six initial Solidarity Playbook case studies has already been published and we would like your help in building this collection.  

Show solidarity – share your case study with peers!

We are looking for more examples that capture best practices on:  

1) Strategies and resilience mechanisms of ICSOs 

We want to hear about strategies and resilience mechanisms of different ICSOs developed to respond to undue scrutiny and attacks such as legal restrictions, bureaucratic clampdowns, financial constraints, media and misinformation/disinformation attacks or digital and cybersecurity risks. We are particularly interested in learning from ICSOs which might not be an obvious target but have had to adapt their strategies due to the consequences of civic space restrictions. 

2) Coalition responses to civic space restrictions that demonstrate how solidarity can work in practice

We want to look at coalition responses at different levels (local/national/regional/global level) and map how civil society organisations support each other, show solidarity and respond to threats and challenges with a unified voice. We are particularly interested in looking at connectivity between these levels, coalitions uniting different kinds of civil society organisations and cross-sector collaborations. 

Got a question?

Then get in touch with Project Manager Eva Gondorová.

Think you might have a case study to share?

Then let us know what your case study is about by answering the questions below. Brief answers to all questions – also not required ones – would be very helpful for us to get a better idea of your case. After submitting this form, we will get in touch with you.

Case Study Submission Form

e.g. legal restrictions, bureaucratic clampdowns, financial constraints, media and misinformation/disinformation attacks or digital and cybersecurity risks.

Eva Gondor

Senior Project Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Eva leads on the Centre's civic space work - the Solidarity Action Network (SANE) aimed at strengthening resilience of and solidarity among civil society actors, and the International Civic Forum (ICF), our annual civic space platform to network and identify opportunities for collaboration. Prior to joining the Centre she worked at the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Foundation) in Stuttgart where she managed the foundation’s projects focusing on civil society and governance in Turkey, the Western Balkans, and North Africa.

COVID-19 Resources for Civil Society #11

17th June 2020 by Robert Vysoudil

This page is part of a series of COVID-19 resource pages that we are creating to help civil society actors.

Click here to view all available pages.

Click here for our latest events news.

On this page, you will find links to readings, podcasts and videos related to the latest COVID-19 news and analysis. If you have a recommendation or a suggestion, let us know. Many thanks to our volunteer researcher Ineke Stemmet.

The sections are:

Staying up-to-date: Links to sites that will keep you abreast of important developments related to our sector and the latest news.

Strategic: We look at the impact and responses to COVID-19 in a general and intersectional way (i.e. impacts on human rights, climate change, etc).

Policy: Civil society’s policies that respond to challenges posed by COVID-19.

Operational: A list of what your organisation can do now to navigate these unprecedented times.

    1. Staying up-to-Date

    2. Strategic

      Biodiversity and Climate Change

        Civic Space and Human Rights

        • Aggravating circumstances: How coronavirus impacts human trafficking (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime)
          Poverty, lack of social or economic opportunity and limited labour protections are the main root causes and drivers that render people vulnerable or cause them to fall victim to human trafficking. This unprecedented crisis will likely exacerbate all of those factors and result in developments that must be noted by anti-human-trafficking communities and stakeholders.
        • Coronavirus and the right to online political participation (Open Global Rights)
          Making access to the internet a human right can address inequalities in access to public discourse, especially where free speech is limited.
        • COVID-19 and the politics of the year of the nurse (The South African Institute of International Affairs)
          The challenges critical medical personnel are currently facing all lead back to a central question of care. There are three main challenges these critical workers face: insufficient supply of necessary protective equipment on a global scale; growing hostility towards them; and difficulties with access to childcare.
        • Southern Africa: Persons with albinism especially vulnerable in the face of COVID-19 (Amnesty International )
          This article argues that South African governments must ensure the protection and well-being of persons with albinism, who are increasingly vulnerable amid the COVID-19 crisis as lockdowns across the region hinder access to healthcare facilities and skin cancer clinics as well as vital sunscreen.
        • Will COVID-19 increase religious hostilities and discrimination? (Open Global Rights )
          COVID-19 and its impacts may hit some religious minorities disproportionately hard, exacerbating economic inequalities, social hostilities and discrimination.

        Data and Digital

        Economic

        • OECD Economic Outlook: The world economy on a tightrope (OECD)
          COVID-19 has triggered the most severe economic recession in nearly a century and is causing enormous damage to people’s health, jobs and well-being. The Outlook focuses on two equally probable scenarios – one in which a second wave of infections, with renewed lock-downs, hits before the end of 2020, and one in which another major outbreak is avoided.

        Education

        • Future shock: 25 Education trends post COVID-19 (Foresight for Development)
          School closures carry high social and economic costs for people across communities, with a particularly severe for the most vulnerable and marginalised families. The resulting disruptions exacerbate already existing disparities within the education system but also in other aspects of their lives. This blog summarises 25 related trends from UNESCO analysis.

        Food security

        • COVID-19 recovery is a chance to improve the African food system (The Conversation)
          What we see happening as a result of actions to contain COVID-19 is like a global natural disaster. It’s also an opportunity for a different kind of recovery. Going back to “business as usual” investments in agriculture and food systems could reproduce those systems’ inequities. Instead, recovery efforts should be geared towards creating a better future.

        Futures

              Gender Equality

              • COVID-19: “Who is Skilled and Who is Unskilled in this Pandemic Moment?” (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom)
                In this article, Cynthia Enloe realises that there are so many times in life when one finds one lacks the relevant skills to make sense of, and to grapple effectively with a pressing condition. That repeated realisation has made her think about skills – and what “counts” as a skill, and who gets to do the “counting.”
              • COVID-19: Making our Recovery Green and Feminist (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom)
                This article explores the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment and advises that the recovery from the pandemic should be feminist and green in nature.
              • Rape cases spike in South Sudan as girls and women left vulnerable during COVID-19 (Plan International)
                A spate of rape cases in South Sudan has exposed the extreme risks girls and women have been left to face in COVID-19 pandemic, warns Plan International.

              Humanitarian

              • This global pandemic could transform humanitarianism forever. Here’s how (The New Humanitarian)
                As the crisis born of this global pandemic has evolved, some of the promises of deep transformation in a humanitarian aid sector that has long resisted reform have proven overly optimistic – at least so far. Here are 13 ways the pandemic may change the future of humanitarianism – and the forces of resistance that may get in the way.

              Multilateralism and international cooperation

              • COVID-19 responses expose gaps in global governance (The South African Institute of International Affairs)
                This report analyses the effectiveness of the WHO and explores the ways in which the pandemic has exposed not only how far the world is from effective and unified global governance, but also a crisis of confidence in the institutions expected to guide international action and cooperation.
              • Tackling COVID-19 as a Grand Challenge (Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society)
                How does the COVID-19 crisis relate to other grand challenges and how should we deal with, such as climate change?

              Pandemic Specific Consequences and Responses (economic, health & social impacts)

              • Epidemics and Social Observation: Why Africa Needs a Different Approach to COVID-19 (African Arguments)
                In the absence of a vaccine, the main tool for control of COVID-19 is human behavioural change. Social scientists are not fully agreed on what determines behavioural change, but there is a broad consensus that individual agency is influenced by social factors. It matters what your family, friends and neighbours think.
              • Will Patents stop COVID drugs from saving lives? (From Poverty to Power)
                The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a global race of public- and private-led research to develop vaccines and treatments. Will patents hinder access to the products it generates? Comparison with HIV/AIDS indicated access problems may mainly affect middle-income countries facing higher prices. Low-income countries will likely receive drugs at discounted prices, and with governments and philanthropic donors covering the costs.
              • Youth or consequences: Put youth at the center of COVID-19 recovery (Brookings Institution)
                This article argues that to head off the worst repercussions of this youth unemployment challenge in the wake of the coronavirus, we must act now, focusing on three critical issues, education, engagement and employment.

              Politics & Governance

              • 6 experts on how capitalism will emerge after COVID-19 (Fast Company)
                We have an unprecedented opportunity to rein in capitalism’s excesses and reshape our democracy. Here’s how business leaders and experts from MIT, Harvard, and more would tackle the biggest problems. What’s been lost—and what could be gained—in the new world order?

                   3. Policy

              • Ensuring women’s representation in COVID-19 policymaking (Online event) (Devex)
                This 1-hour virtual event discussed why there’s an urgent need to integrate women in COVID-19 policymaking and highlight some of the work that has already been done to advance their voices in not only the response to this pandemic, but also long-term recovery efforts.
              • It’s Not Just About Health: Four Lessons From Ebola for the COVID-19 Response in Conflict-Affected Countries (Peacelab.blog / Search for Common Ground)
                Lessons from Search for Common Ground’s response to the Ebola and COVID-19 epidemics: Support civil society in violence prevention and trust-building measures, provide adequate training for security actors, and ensure the meaningful inclusion of local communities.
              • Mining industry profits from pandemic (The Ecologist)
                More than 300 organisations from around the world have released an open-statement condemning the ways that the mining industry and numerous governments are taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to manufacture new mining opportunities and enhance their damaged reputations.
              • NGOs call for continued support for transparency and accountability
                This letter calls on providers of development assistance to continue to support transparency, accountability and open government during COVID-19 and the global economic crisis. The aim is to have it published in the media and to distribute widely through our online tools and networks once published. NGOs working on transparency, accountability and open government can sign here.
              • Strongest Together: An NGO Consortia View on Structural Issues in the Humanitarian Response to COVID-19 (White paper)
                COVID-19 has aggravated previously deteriorating humanitarian conditions and increasingly complex operational environments for frontline responders, prompting new operational challenges to emerge. InterAction has partnered with nongovernmental organization (NGO) consortia in 13 countries globally to draft this Working Paper delineating these challenges.
              • With attacks against health workers on the rise, advocates call for action (Devex )
                Attacks against health workers have increased under the strain of COVID-19, according to a cohort of medical and humanitarian organizations. In a joint declaration, they call for governments to do more than talk about it.

                   4. Operational

              Communications Student Assistant

              International Civil Society Centre